Something for everyone

It’s the morning after the night before here in Canberra and while I am happy to report that there are no sore heads among the SmartCompany team, armies of journalists and lobbyists are recovering from a long evening.

Reaction to the budget appears to be coming from three distinct areas:

• Economists who believe that the Government didn’t do enough in the way of major spending cuts.
• Lobby groups who think that the Government didn’t do enough in the way of major initiatives to assist their sector.
• Opposition politicians whose default position is that the Government never does anything right.

In other words, it’s very much business as usual. But who is right?

Actually, everyone is a bit right and a bit wrong.

Certainly the economists have a point – despite Wayne Swan’s claims, there are no major cuts here and what savings have been made have mainly been ploughed back into new programs.

As veteran economist Saul Eslake said on television this morning: “Wayne Swan could have sat on the beach at Noosa for six months and the budget bottom line would have been no different.”

However, these economists are looking at the big picture – that is, the picture that shows the Australian economy powering along thanks to the mining boom.

Wayne Swan was right to highlight the “patchwork” economy and would have known that sharp cuts would be exacerbating the problems being felt by some sectors, such as retail, property and tourism. He has played it safe, but that is not a dumb move.

Lobbyists are almost required by law to whinge about their sector missing out in the budget, but in truth they have relatively little to complain about.

While it would have been great to see more done in areas like innovation and tax reform, we all knew there was no room in the budget for major spending initiatives. No one should be shocked that that’s exactly what we got.

However, after putting together SmartCompany‘s sector-by-sector guide to the budget this morning, I can say that there is an “every child wins a prize” feel to this budget.

There was a small initiative in nearly every sector, and most will also benefit from the $3 billion skills package.

Cuts were actually quite hard to find – where they have been made they are small, with the exception of the $953 million saving from changes to fringe benefits tax for company cars.

And as for the politicians bemoaning the Government’s every move?

Opposition leader Tony Abbott is still clearly formulating his budget reply, but this morning he was busy arguing the budget was both too harsh to families and didn’t cut hard enough.

That’s having an each way bet if ever I saw it.